Brokers in Wright Deal Run a Father-Son Empire

By RICHARD L. BERKE, Special to The New York Times

Published: April 21, 1989

SAN ANTONIO, April 20—
The father and son who arranged an oil well deal that was beneficial to House Speaker Jim Wright are successful entrepreneurs with little formal education and longstanding ties to prominent politicians.

The two, Morris and Doug Jaffe, are also old friends of a Wright business partner, George Mallick, a figure in the Wright ethics investigation who was also involved in the oil well deal.

The Jaffes are not active in civic causes here and prefer to operate behind the scenes financing political campaigns and intricate business deals.

They have set up an empire of nearly 60 privately held corporations, and the details of their financial position and the full reach of their investments remain a mystery.

Both Morris D. Jaffe, 66 years old, and Doug, 38, have been subpoenaed to meet here early next week with investigators from the House ethics committee.

Morris Jaffe was a friend of and contributor to President Lyndon B. Johnson and spent at least $9 million in 1962 to save the empire of a Johnson crony, Billie Sol Estes. Mr. Estes was convicted of fraud.

Mr. Jaffe, who has interests in oil, real estate and aerospace, has been dogged by reports of ties to Carlos Marcello, the reputed leader of organized crime in Louisiana. Mr. Jaffe has played down the connection, saying that he only tried to buy land from Mr. Marcello but that the deal collapsed when Mr. Marcello was convicted of assaulting an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Federal Election Commission records disclose no contributions to Mr. Wright in the last four years, but they show that the Jaffes often backed Democratic House and Senate members, giving a total of $4,000 to Representative Henry B. Gonzales of Texas and $3,000 to Representative Les Aspin of Wisconsin. Contributions to Coelho

A Jaffe company provided air travel a year ago for a fund-raiser on behalf of the Valley Education Fund, the political action committee of Representative Tony Coelhoof California. Records also show that Doug Jaffe contributed $806 to Mr. Coelho a month later.

Morris Jaffe raises money for Democrats and is close to prominent Texas politicians, including John S. White, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Doug Jaffe, apparently with the support of his father, arranged the sale of an oil well in Orange County, Tex., in which a blind trust Mr. Wright had set up profited, according to the committee's report. 'Traveled in Highest Circles'

While the elder Mr. Jaffe has not flaunted his relationship with the Speaker, his associates were not surprised that his name had turned up now. A local Democrat says Mr. Wright often travels on a Jaffe plane when he makes a trip to San Antonio from his district in Fort Worth.

''He's always traveled in the highest circles in party politics and the highest financial circles in the United States,'' Oliver S. Heard Jr., a prominent lawyer here, said of the elder Mr. Jaffe.

Mr. Jaffe, who grew up in a poor San Antonio family, has shied away from civic groups, and he has never mixed much in social circles. ''He's got a touch of The Great Gatsby in him,'' said Maury Maverick Jr., a retired lawyer and political columnist here. ''He clawed and fought his way to the top. But the country club crowd looks down their nose at him.''

Even so, Mr. Jaffe maintained a friendship with Mr. Mallick, a principal in Mr. Wright's business dealings. Mr. Mallick told committee investigators he and Mr. Jaffe worked on Hubert H. Humphrey's Presidential campaign in 1968.

The elder Mr. Jaffe attended St. Mary's University and Texas A & M but never graduated. He was said to have made his first fortune in a major uranium deposit in Texas. Later he began building houses, ran a discount electronics concern and developed the big Central Park Mall here.

Doug Jaffe dropped out of the 10th grade and then made a fortune selling vending machines. One of his more lucrative ventures was a company that refits jet engines of Boeing 707's to bring them into compliance with Federal noise standards. One of his companies is promoting a multibillion-dollar sale of jet trainers to the Pentagon. YOUNGER JAFFE IN RESALE

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Special to The New York Times) - Doug Jaffe arranged the resale of an oil exploration venture four months after it was bought for Mr. Wright and his wife, the West German company that bought the interest for $440,000 said today.

Striegel Friedemann, an official of Union Rheinische Petroleum Inc., said his company had bought most of Mr. Wright's stake in the venture last May 10 on the advice of Mr. Jaffe, president of the Jaffe Energy Corporation.